


Da Capo

by makokitten



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Canon Compliant, Conversations, F/M, Frottage, M/M, Manipulation, Mentioned Will Graham/Alana Bloom, Morning After, Morning Sex, Oral Sex, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:16:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makokitten/pseuds/makokitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is easiest if he thinks of himself as the bait, so that’s what he does. He has to maintain that air of strange, inexplicable intimacy between himself and Hannibal, so he does. It’s personal, and it’s the most impersonal thing in the world.</p><p>            Will lifts his chin, and their eyes connect. When he crosses his arms, his fingers drum against his own shirtsleeves. </p><p>            He asks, “Have you ever slept with any of your patients?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A

**Author's Note:**

> Written, edited, and posted entirely between 2x09 "Shiizakana" and 2x10 "Naka-Choko." Can be considered a "Naka-Choko" missing scene, taking place sometime between the Tier murder and the five-way sex scene.

* * *

            It’s easiest if Will Graham thinks of himself as the bait.

            There comes a time when he refuses to sit during his psychiatry sessions. He walks the perimeter of the cool, dark room with its red-brown walls, paces back and forth until he swears he can feel the floor wearing down under his shoes. He stands at the window, looking outside at the parked cars on the street, empty of passengers, or he leans against the desk, just thinking. He lays claim to little pieces of Hannibal Lecter’s office just to watch Hannibal watch him, to see what Hannibal might do about it.

            Hannibal doesn’t seem to mind. Sometimes he stays in his chair and follows Will’s body with his eyes, and Will feels Hannibal drink him in. Sometimes he gets up and deepens the tread of Will’s footpath. He always stays a few paces behind, not as a hunter stalking prey, but as an observer loath to interfere, a scientist. Today, he meets Will where Will stops, by the desk, and waits for Will to speak first out of courtesy. He can tell there are words brewing on Will’s tongue.

            Will says what Hannibal wants to hear. That’s what this is all about. He looks down at his hands to make sure they aren’t yet claws and says, “I’m changing.” 

            “I know.”

            “More than you know.” Will glances at Hannibal’s hands, which are tucked away safely in his pockets. He wonders how he’d see those hands today, if they’d be claws, too, or talons, or hooves, or just hands. The last possibility is the only one that frightens him. “I constantly surprise myself with my own… forwardness.”

            Hannibal cocks his head to the side, intrigued. “You’ve always been forward.” 

            “No,” Will says. “Not like this.”

            “Then surprise me.” 

            This is easiest if he thinks of himself as the bait, so that’s what he does. He has to maintain that air of strange, inexplicable intimacy between himself and Hannibal, so he does. Maintain, cultivate, escalate. It’s personal, and it’s the most impersonal thing in the world.

            Will lifts his chin, and their eyes connect. When he crosses his arms, his fingers drum against his own shirtsleeves.

            He asks, “Have you ever slept with any of your patients?”

            “I have not,” says Hannibal, entirely unfazed. He barely even moves, and all Will can read in his eyes is the faintest twinkle of curiosity. 

            “Why not?” 

            “It would be a breach of ethics,” is the reply, accompanied by a staccato little shrug, barely there. Maybe Will imagines it. “And I don’t typically find my patients sexually attractive.”

            “Typically,” Will repeats.

            “Typically.” 

            Will’s shirt is nicely pressed, a shade of blue that’s faded with too many washings. It sets off the darkness of his hair and eyes by contrast. The coat he wore to Hannibal’s office was new. His shoes have been recently shined. His appearance is careful and calculated in a way that should appeal to Hannibal, both aesthetically and because it’s calculated at all. He says, “You don’t seem surprised that I asked.”

            Hannibal’s lips tighten into something like a smile. He says, “I’m not.”

            Will doesn’t usually like being looked at, but more and more often he wants to draw Hannibal’s dead eyes away from everyone else: away from his other patients, away from Randall Tier, away from Jack, away from Alana (god, Alana). He can contain the damage if Hannibal has eyes only for him.

            His shrug is drawn-out, prolonged for emphasis, and he watches Hannibal’s gaze trace the lines of his shoulders. “I’ll just have to try harder to surprise you,” he says, leaning against the desk and looking up, etching patterns in the ceiling, letting his focus alight on the bookshelves on the room’s second tier. All the time spent in this office, and he still doesn’t know all of its secrets. “I think we’ve had enough breaches of ethics between us to—”

            “You’ve only ever referred to yourself as straight, Will.” 

            At this point, he is barely anything. “I am.”

            “And you’ve never mentioned any desire to pursue sexual encounters with other men.”

            This is the part he hadn’t wanted to discuss, because he can’t lie about it. But he was the one who began this, and he has to follow through. “I haven’t,” he says, and his tongue darts out between his lips, dampening them. “But I find myself—thinking about it. You. It started in my dreams, and spread like… a cancer.”

            “I see.” Hannibal’s tone is inconclusive. For once, Will is glad to be looking away from him; he doesn’t want to interpret it. The ceiling holds his attention just fine. “And am I featured this way in your fantasies before or after you kill me?”

            “Before. Sometimes while I’m killing you.” His voice goes lopsided as he says, “Never after.”

            “Why do you think—”

            “I don’t know.” Another shrug, a shake of the head, and a little flash of genuine shame. Will wonders what shame smells like, if it permeates the room when he runs his hand through his hair. What else can Hannibal smell on him? Death? Decay? Aftershave? “A better question would be ‘when’ or, or ‘ _how_.’” 

            “Those aren’t the questions that interest me.” There’s a pause here as he lets that sink into Will’s skin. The obvious follow-up question never forms in Will’s mouth. “Our attractions are not rational, Will. They can be born of hatred.”

            “That’s comforting.” Will turns his head to look to the right, where Hannibal had been, and finds him gone. He’s standing straight ahead, now. Feet away. Will remembers the feel of Hannibal’s hand against his skin in the barn as if he were still being touched. He’s surprised no one else can see the handprint there, on his neck and jaw. Every time Jack Crawford looks at him and doesn’t ask about it, he’s surprised. He feels like there should be a burn mark there.

            “Were you hoping to confront this in your therapy?” asks Hannibal Lecter, “or did you feel compelled to me about it for other reasons?”

            “I don’t know how to confront it,” says Will. Hannibal’s put himself within strangling distance, as he so often does. If Will just stretched his arms, the littlest bit, all anyone would find on the body would be the hand spread on the neck. It takes less stretching to place his hands on Hannibal’s sleeves, as an invitation. Hannibal steps closer, and Will is very careful here: he exposes his jugular. He used the cologne that Hannibal hates, but he doubt that matters, now, not when something like want gleams behind that mask of professional curiosity.

            Before he walked in the door, he considered that whatever this is might not work. He knew Hannibal wanted him in a number of ways, but maybe not this way. Maybe Will himself wouldn’t have the taste for it. Maybe he’d balk.

            Now, his lips are parted. Hannibal’s, too. Will breathes in his carbon monoxide. Between them, there are only inches of empty air.

            He exhales, and his hands tremble on Hannibal’s upper arms, and his eyes flicker down and to the right because Hannibal’s pierce them straight through. Up close, there is red in the brown of those irises, two shades darker than the color of dried blood. “I don’t know—where to begin.” 

            “Then I will help you,” Hannibal assures him, reassures him. With the lightest brush of the backs of his fingers, he turns Will’s face to his again.

            Will waits, eyes closed, heart beating like a bird, trapped, straining to burst free of his ribcage, for a kiss that doesn’t come. Instead, Hannibal’s fingers flutter down his cheek, along the line of his jaw, and to the hollow at the base of his throat. Will swallows instinctively, and wonders what it would be like if he had his fingers there, at Hannibal’s throat, harmlessly, pressing just enough to feel the bob of his Adam’s apple beneath his skin. He feels like even something as simple as that he’d have to take by force, and Hannibal wouldn’t allow him enough strength to force anything.

            When Hannibal murmurs, “Not here,” Will feels it against his lips.

            “Here,” Will insists, shifting his feet apart, thinking the movement might draw Hannibal’s attention down to his legs, his thighs. “Now. I don’t want to wait.”

            Hannibal watches him with a tired fondness, admiring his energy while detesting his disregard for detail. None of that is difficult to read. “My house isn’t far,” he says. “I’ll drive.”

            “Why not here?”

            “I’m loath to mix business with pleasure.”

            “I think it’s a little late for that, Doctor Lecter,” Will says.

            Hannibal’s lip quirks, and his hand comes to rest at Will’s lower back. Will feels the current running through him, his desire to resist, to insist, drain out through the intersection of them like it’s a ground. Hannibal applies the slightest bit of pressure to him, guiding him, and he goes.


	2. B

* * *

            The problem with Hannibal Lecter is that there are no men like him. With many men (and women) there will be that one little gear, obvious but obscured, that you can reach for inside and tweak and twist to make them break down. With many men (and women), figuring out what that gear is, where it is, is key to destroying them. Hannibal is a problem that Will has to attack from all angles, with every tool in his kit, even the ones that are blunt and rusted.

            Hannibal strands Will in the middle of the bedroom and peels off to the side to remove his suit jacket and tie, which is cruelty wrapped in courtesy because Will doesn’t know what to do with his hands, or where he should sit, or what in this room he can and cannot touch. Everything looks expensive. The mattress will probably be too soft on his back. Will feels a twinge of resentment toward wealth on display, a product of a childhood in poverty.

            The rest of the situation is more alien to him than the luxury. When he wants something, he takes the lead. (He remembers kissing Alana Bloom and pushes that away. She doesn’t belong here.) (Doesn’t matter: she’s already been here.) Here he has to let Hannibal feel like he has control while making Hannibal do what he wants. It’s like trying to steer your partner in a waltz when you’re not leading, while trying not to trip over your own feet because he’s the only one who knows how to waltz.

            Will licks his lips again.

            Hannibal, in the middle of unbuttoning his cuffs, looks up and notices that Will hasn’t taken advantage of his spatial freedom to undress, that he might need additional cueing. He doubles back to Will, and his hands smooth Will’s shirt down over his arms. His hair isn’t entirely slicked back anymore and threatens to fall into his eyes.

            He says, “Tell me what shape your dreams take when I’m in them.”

            “It’s changed over time.” Hannibal’s fingers are on his buttons, undoing them. Will breathes in. “They began when I was incarcerated. I would open my eyes and you’d be there, in my cell.”

            “And then?”

            Will doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he steps out of his shoes, shrugs off his shirt. He doesn’t know why. It seems like the polite thing to do.

            Hannibal’s face softens, strangely, as he undoes Will’s belt buckle. “We’ve broached subjects just as intimate before.” A swish as he pulls the belt from its loops. “More intimate, even. There is an unwarranted stigma against discussing sexuality that does not extend to our therapy.” He looks at Will. He has to angle his face down, a little; he is taller by only an inch, slightly more now because he still wears his shoes. Will feels that twinge of resentment again.

            “I was in your cell.” Hannibal traces a line over where Will’s heart should be. Heart flew the coop during the drive over, though. No place for it here. “What did I do?”

            “You…” It’s been a long while since anyone’s told Will he’s attractive. Hannibal isn’t saying it now, but he’s looking at Will like he’s a work of art, mud and clay sculpted into something beautiful. Will almost swallows down his next words. “Oral sex.”

            “I performed it on you?”

            “Yes.”

            Hannibal already knew the answer to that, Will thinks. It’s why it’s so easy for him to guide Will those couple of steps back to the bed, to sit him down. Will braces himself by grasping onto the corner of the bed, which wrinkles the coverings. Hannibal kneels down in front of him, and now he eyes Will as he’d eye a blank canvas. “How did you like that?”

            “I didn’t.” Will could crush Hannibal’s head in his hands, but doesn’t. His hands remain rooted to the bed. “I found it unkind.”

            “Hm.” Hannibal stands, and Will hears him walk to his nightstand, rummage for something. The space where he used to be goes cold very quickly. “Why did you find it unkind?”

            “It didn’t seem fair,” Will says, and Hannibal’s back again, down between Will’s legs as if he’d never left. Will can’t see what he brought with him. “I thought you’d taken so much of me, at that point—it seemed unfair you should come for the rest.”

            Hannibal seems to find that interesting, but his head is still bowed; he doesn’t look above Will’s waistline as he divests Will, skillfully, of his pants, then his boxer briefs. “Most would consider oral sex to be a submissive act,” he says as he does it. “A service.”

            “But we’re not most people, Doctor Lecter,” Will says, his voice tilting higher as Hannibal’s fingers ghost over his inner thigh. “It’s not submission, it’s control. It’s manipulation of the part that’s mosss _t_ —”

            Hannibal is sucking on the inside of Will’s left thigh. It’s as if venom spreads from that spot, zinging though Will’s entire body. Will looks down at him, and he looks up, only with his eyes, which are, somehow, gloating. No single word describes Hannibal Lecter. Will adds “tease” to the growing lexicon of what does.

            “Keep talking,” says Hannibal, fingers circling the place where his mouth had been, now just a cooling patch of skin. “This isn’t one of your dreams, Will. I’ll be kind.”

            Will doesn’t know how he can make that promise with a straight face.

            “It’s not an act of submission,” he says, his voice husky and quiet. He’s hard and Hannibal’s only danced around really touching him. There’s unkindness in that, but he only has his own body to blame. He can’t watch now, he can’t. His eyes dart everywhere. “To take the most sensitive part of someone and render it—vulnerable—in a way that—oh, _Jesus_.”

            It’s been a long time since anyone’s gone down on Will Graham. He isn’t inexperienced. He’s kissed enough to become proficient at kissing and had enough sex to know he’s competent at that, too, at least according to previous female partners. But a lack of recent action has left him particularly sensitive, and all he can do against Hannibal’s mouth is try to keep talking, try to explain. “—And to exploit that—that vulnerability—” His socked feet slide against the floor, seeking purchase.

            Will’s head rolls back and he looks at the ceiling until the gold glint of a picture frame on the wall catches his eye at the corner. The room is pristine. He doesn’t think anyone has died here. He also doesn’t think Hannibal was lying about not having slept with any of his other patients. For a moment, Will is monstrously pleased with himself in a way that would terrify anyone who knew about it, and then his gut twists once and the feeling is gone.

            “Back then,” Will says, wiping his brow, “I didn’t want you seeing me this—like this.” His muscles clench, and his hips want to move. It’s hard to stay seated on the edge of the bed. His fists are white-knuckled. He’s tempted to reach for Hannibal’s head just to have something else to hold, but he doesn’t know if his fingers will skitter across the smooth domed surface of the Wendigo’s skull. They did in his dreams. He held horns instead.

            Hannibal chooses that moment to pause. He’d had Will all the way in his mouth, one hand braced against his thigh, the other caressing his testicles. Will is grateful for a clear mind, but he’s tempted to whine, to be greedy. Hannibal asks him, “And now?”

            “Now,” Will says, “I don’t care.” He laughs, weakly, and he remembers some old joke about how the definition of trust is two cannibals blowing each other. They’re halfway there. Will’s only a cannibal by technicality. “You’ve seen worse.”

            Hannibal’s brow wrinkles. “Why don’t you get on the bed?” he says, and it’s a suggestion that doesn’t leave room for other options. “It’ll be more comfortable.” 

            “Yeah,” Will says, and he moves back, his entire lower half tingling, until there’s room for both of them, until he can put his head down on one of Hannibal’s too-soft pillows. He abandons his pants and underwear on the floor; he doesn’t need them right now, anyway. 

            Then Hannibal is on him again, and Will gets lost charting the movements of his tongue, trying to map them to constellations. He does reach down, and all he finds is hair to grasp, which he does, one-handed. He’s so caught up in the sensations of hair-under-fingers and mouth-on-skin that he doesn’t register the changing angle of Hannibal’s head until he feels a plastic-gloved, lubricated finger slip inside of him.

            “God,” he says, out loud. He’s usually quiet, but not now. Now he’s deliriously blasphemous. “Oh, my god.” A few curses spill out of him as Hannibal’s finger finds his prostate again and again and his hips lift off the bed with untethered finality, and then he’s still but for the rise and fall of his chest. He asks for God against the pillow. He doesn’t expect a response.

            Will hears Hannibal come to rest beside him, and when he turns his head, he looks right into Hannibal’s eyes. Hannibal takes his left hand, strokes the backs of all of its fingers with his thumb until they curl over, and then kisses the first two knuckles. His lips are damp. Will wonders why Hannibal won’t kiss him on the mouth, and tells himself that he only wonders only out of curiosity, not longing.

            “I gather this wasn’t your first time,” he says flatly. With a man, he means.

            “First times are educational,” is the reply. “Everyone has them once.”

            “Mm,” says Will. Hannibal still wears most of his clothes. He never got around to removing his shirt. Below, there’s a definite bulge at his crotch.

            Will turns onto his side, reaches down, and Hannibal shifts away from him just enough to prevent contact. “There’s no need.”

            “Why not?” Will asks. He tries to reconcile this data point with what he knows. Hannibal values control. Does he consider arousal a lack of control over his own body? He can’t; he performs just fine under other circumstances. (Will could ask Alana. Compare notes.) (No, he couldn’t.) Maybe he hadn’t intended to become aroused without stimulation. Maybe it’s something about Will, how Will affects him.

            It’s an opening. Will shifts forward, presses his palm against the zipper of Hannibal’s pants. Indelicate, but it gets the point across. The fabric is warm under his hand. He wants to know what’s being kept from him.

            “It seems unfair,” he says, moving his palm up and down, watching Hannibal’s face intently while Hannibal watches Will’s hand, eyes half-lidded, lips parted, but only slightly. “You got me off. It was… therapeutic.” Educational. “I should reciprocate.”

            Hannibal allows the touch for just a little longer, and then his fingers curl around Will’s wrist and pull his hand away. Silence nearly smothers them. “Will,” he says eventually. “Let me penetrate you.”

            Whatever Will was going to say in response comes out as only a sharp intake of breath.

            “Is that not what happens in your dreams?” Hannibal asks. “You said the shape of them changed over time.”

            “Mostly it’s the other way around,” Will admits, leaving out the obvious implication that some of the time it isn’t. He shifts. The sweat on his body is only just beginning to cool. “But I don’t think I’m up for that, uh, arrangement right now.” He squints. “Is this a fantasy of yours, Doctor Lecter?”

            Hannibal says, “It only just occurred to me,” which is probably a lie. He releases Will’s wrist, and runs his hand, the ungloved one, down Will’s naked side. It’s meant to soothe him, and does. “Would you turn over for me, please? Onto your stomach.”

            Will stares, then nods and turns over. He almost expects to be told that he’s good, but Hannibal doesn’t say it. At least, not aloud.

            Hannibal gets up, in no particular hurry, and then there are hands on Will’s hips, pushing them up, positioning him. The muscles in Will’s thighs murmur in complaint, but settle down when he breathes in. Behind him, a condom wrapper crackles. Will entertains the bizarre thought that Hannibal’s trying to contain trace evidence, but that makes no sense when he’s all over Hannibal’s mouth. Then he finds himself wondering why Hannibal didn’t have him wear a condom for the blowjob, and remembers that Hannibal’s seen his medical files and knows he doesn’t have any diseases.

            There’s so much to remember.

            Will thinks he’d probably find trace evidence of Alana Bloom all over this room. Hannibal’s used her as an alibi, and probably will again. He scrutinizes the pillowcases for a lingering strand of her long, dark hair. There’s a finger inside of him again. Would he be able to tell Alana’s hair from his? Hannibal leans over him, and his other hand is in Will’s hair, keeping him from looking behind. Will swears he can smell Alana on the pillow. He feels himself becoming aroused again, which makes no sense; it’s too soon. Another finger.

            Hannibal tells him something and he isn’t paying attention. He says, “What?”

            “As ever,” Hannibal says, “you have the right to tell me when to stop.”

            Will isn’t sure he’s ever had that right. He doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say anything, and then it doesn’t matter, because Hannibal is inside of him.

            It hurts, a little. Surgery generally does when you’re awake. It hurts in a strange, sad way, and Will clenches his jaw and forgets to breathe out and gasps instead. The hand in his hair relaxes, and strokes down over the nape of his neck, his upper back. Over the roar of a tsunami echoing in his ears, he hears, “Is it too much?”

            “No,” Will says, pressing the flat of his palm against the sheets in an effort to ground himself. “It’s strange, but it’s—” His next exhale is the first bark of an ironic laugh that’s never fully realized. “It’s not so different.”

            Hannibal moves again, trying to adjust himself, the both of them. Will tenses everywhere and tells himself to relax. “Not so different from what?”

            Will really laughs this time, as much as he can with all the breath he has left, as if his entire life has become a cosmic joke that only he finds funny. “Having you in my head.”

            Hannibal doesn’t laugh. He moves out, and in, and out. It stops hurting, if it ever truly hurt at all, except in a hollow place somewhere that has nothing to do with anything physical. Will bites the inside of his cheek, and tastes copper. This time, when he needs a name to choke on, he says, “Doctor Lecter.”

            The only sound in his mind is that of waves lapping up against a seashore.


	3. A'

* * *

            Time returns to Will Graham, accompanied by a sense that he shouldn’t open his eyes. Opening his eyes would mean forsaking the simple sensation of sheets against his skin, the quiet of sleep, for another day of light and sound and unpalatable thought. He could pretend for longer, could stay in bed with his eyes shut until the sun went down again and he had a real excuse, but that wouldn’t do anyone any good.

            He doesn’t remember falling asleep. He remembers coming for the second time against Hannibal’s hand, and Hannibal inside of him, and falling back to earth, landing on the bed. Hannibal’s hands were the only things that kept him from sinking straight through the mattress. He remembers that, and then nothing. Now there are blankets around his shoulders. He’s tucked in, warm. He can’t be alone.

            He chooses to wake up, and sees Hannibal Lecter watching him with something like genuine affection.

            Will turns over onto his back, looks up at the ceiling instead. He’d almost forgotten any of it was real. “Watching me while I sleep,” he says. “Seems rude.”

            The sheets on his left rustle. Hannibal says, “In Jewish tradition, it is considered disrespectful to look upon one who cannot look back. Generally, that’s meant to apply to the dead before burials.”

            “Well,” says Will, “it’s the right idea.” He’s been half-burying little pieces of himself for a long time, replacing them as they die off. Now he stretches his legs as if making sure they’re still with him. He feels like he should want to wash every inch of skin that Hannibal touched, but he doesn’t want that, and it’s what he doesn’t want that confuses him.

            Hannibal notices him shift, and asks, “Are you all right, Will?”

            Will stares pointedly at the ceiling. Let Hannibal analyze the side of his face. “I don’t know,” he says. “I did sleep with my psychiatrist.”

            Not entirely deadpan, Hannibal follows up with, “How does that make you feel?”

            Will smiles, glances over toward Hannibal, and quickly looks back up. There are crinkles of mirth at the corner of Hannibal’s eyes that make him seem like a real human being. Hannibal rests his hand on Will’s shoulder, a perfect touch to test the waters: friendly contact, not too intimate. “I was only asking if you were all right physically,” Hannibal says, to reassure him. “We should save the rest to talk about during your next session.”

            Will can’t begin to imagine that conversation. “I’m fine,” he says, intentionally vague. There are parts of him that do feel fine, surprisingly, when he takes stock of himself. His head is remarkably clear; his heartbeat is normal, relaxed. “A little sore.” There are parts of him that do feel sore, that have either gone unused for too long or aren’t accustomed to being used like that, but mainly the soreness is painted on the inside of his ribs, where he can’t massage it away.

            “Rested, I hope.” Hannibal’s index finger paints a line down Will’s arm. “You slept a long time.”

            “I probably needed it.” But the phrasing makes suspicion lurch inside Will. “What did you do while I slept?”

            “I composed for a while,” says Hannibal, and if he’s lying, it doesn’t creep into his voice. “Then I slept. Then I waited for you to wake up.”

            Will turns back onto his side so they’re facing each other again, very nearly nose to nose. Hannibal watches him, lounging, hair mussed, cheek against the pillow. He looks innocent enough, but he has a way of looking innocent to those who don’t know better. His eyes are dark and unreadable. Shaken off of Will’s shoulder, he reaches up to brush a stray curl away from Will’s forehead. “What is it?”

            “I would have liked to see you sleep,” Will says. What he means is that he hopes Hannibal hasn’t turned him into an alibi, again. 

            “And maybe you will, someday.”

            Something swells in Will’s chest, and he quashes it immediately. “Are you saying we should do this again?”

            “I might be,” says Hannibal.

            Will blinks. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. He’d barely considered that he might wind up staying the night, although he did make sure to leave some extra food and an unlocked door for the dogs, just in case. Before he can stop himself, he says, “I’d like that.”

            He’s not even sure it’s untrue. His lips go unguarded when he’s tired.

            Hannibal says, “As would I. Although if we keep this up, I may become professionally obligated to refer you to another psychiatrist.”

            “You wouldn’t.”

            “No,” Hannibal agrees. “I would not.”

            Will shifts toward him, then, not because he feels vulnerable, and not because he’s aiming to manipulate, but because after last night, all of the tension has ebbed from his body. The parts of him that aren’t sore on the inside, that are relaxed, that are enjoying this, those parts wants to be close. Hannibal understands those parts of Will. He always has. He kisses him.

            Of all of the things they’ve done in this room, the kiss is the only thing that feels real. It isn’t desperate, or forced, but slow, and warm, with surprising tenderness, just lips and then just a little more than lips. Hannibal tastes faintly of mint, which means that sometime during the night he’d used mouthwash to rinse Will from his tongue. Will suspects that he tastes strongly of unbrushed teeth, himself, but Hannibal doesn’t seem to mind. Hannibal’s eyes are closed. Will closes his, too.

            They break apart. Will, at a complete loss for words, says, “Hello.”

            “Hello,” Hannibal replies. The fondness is unmistakable. “Would you like breakfast?”

            “Depends on what you have.”

            “Everything.”

            Will feels like ribbing him. “Corn flakes?”

            “Tragically, no corn flakes.” Hannibal breathes out through his nose. “I’ll make a note for next time.”

            Will wonders what he’d get if he asked for a protein scramble. Ignoring the way his stomach grumbles, he says, “Just coffee, then.”

            “Coffee it is.” Hannibal presses a lingering kiss to Will’s forehead that stings when he pulls away to leave the bed. When he stands, Will sees that he’s completely naked and immediately finds something else to pay attention to. He can neither fathom nor articulate why he’s embarrassed. They’ve already been intimate. He should be scrutinizing Hannibal’s skin for scars or other exploitable marks, but it’s easier not to look. He continues not looking until Hannibal has put on a robe and left.

            With the room to himself, Will props himself up on his elbows and peers around. In the morning light which strains through the dark curtains, the walls almost appear dusty grey instead of black. Everything has a softer edge about it: the corners of the bureaus and picture frames don’t look like they could cut skin, and the golden trinkets aren’t so harsh and grating. The place seems inhabitable, something like what Will would expect a real bedroom to look like. Last night, to him, it had seemed like the kind of room to which you’d intentionally leave the door open, hoping your guests would wander in and envy you. A showroom. 

            Then again, a lot of what Hannibal Lecter does, and says, and owns is just for show.

            He rubs his eyes, and spies his pants in a crumpled pile on the floor where he’d left them the previous evening. His phone is still in his back pocket, set to vibrate. If anything happened during the night and he missed it, someone would have given him a call. If they found a body, he’d know. If Hannibal had snuck away to commit murder, he would know. Still reluctant to stand up, Will reaches out with his leg until he hooks his pants with his big toe and drags them within reach.

            Will is listening to his voicemail when Hannibal returns with a mug of piping hot black coffee. He hangs up promptly. Hannibal asks, “Did something happen?”

            “No,” says Will, setting the phone down on the nightstand. “Just an update. Jack wanted to let me know that they haven’t made any progress on the Tier case.”

            “Nor would I expect them to. It was clean work.”

            “Mm.” Will nods, his mind elsewhere. He can’t dwell on Randall Tier. “I’m glad nothing happened overnight. I’d have to explain why I wasn’t reachable.”

            “You could just tell Jack we were having an affair.” 

            “Like he’d believe that.” 

            “Precisely.” 

            Will shakes his head. “We’d have to come up something he’d actually buy. That smells good, by the way.” 

            “St. Helena Green Tipped Bourbon.” Hannibal sets the coffee on the nightstand, next to Will’s phone and on top of a coaster he brought up from downstairs. “Grown on the island to which Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled in 1815.”

            “Sounds expensive.”

            “I’m as particular about coffee as I am about anything else,” Hannibal says, only slightly ruffled. “I consider it deserving of the same respect as fine wine. I would wait for this particular cup to cool before sampling, however.”

            Will picks up the mug anyway, just to smell the coffee up close. The ceramic warms his palms before he puts it back on its coaster. “I seem to develop a lot of acquired tastes when I spend time with you,” he observes.

            “I wonder what you’ll acquire a taste for next,” Hannibal says, and then, casually, as if it’s an entirely unrelated remark, he adds, “I see my first patient at noon.”

            Will isn’t wearing his watch. “How long do we have until then?”

            “About four hours. Subtracting travel time, three and a half.”

            “Three and a half hours,” Will repeats. “So what are you doing out of bed?”

            Hannibal smiles as he crosses over to the empty half of the bed, removes his robe, and climbs under the covers. He isn’t seductive about it because he doesn’t have to be; he believes Will is already seduced, and Will’s not sure he’s wrong. His knee brushes Will’s thigh as he settles down on his side. “That forwardness you mentioned,” he says wryly, “I’m starting to see it now.”

            Will kisses him to shut him up. A parting of lips, a brush of tongue, and they swallow each other down like medicine. 

            Both of Will’s hands hold Hannibal’s face, to keep him from pulling away, but there’s no need for that. Hannibal explores Will’s body with a lack of restraint Will wishes he could allow himself, and gently encourages Will to roll on top of him, aligning their hips. Will kisses him too many times and ruts against him without grace, until Hannibal slips his hand down between them.

            It ends with Will’s forehead pressed against Hannibal’s, his teeth clenched as he tries to stop himself from gasping out his orgasm. Hannibal’s hand rests against Will’s lower back, his eyes closed, peaceful. He never stopped smiling. 

            That coffee’s probably cooled enough to drink.

            Will lacks the energy to roll away. Muscles still jump in his thighs. He lowers his body down and drapes himself across Hannibal, trying to catch his breath. Hannibal strokes down his spine, running his thumb over each of Will’s vertebrae. “You fantasized about killing me,” he says softly, right in Will’s ear. “You could do it now.”

            Will blinks moisture out of his eyes. “I could.” He has a number of options. His hands are free, for one. Hannibal’s jugular is right there, for another. Will’s teeth aren’t as sharp as a cave bear’s, but he could do it. It would be messy, but he could do it. Hannibal’s heartbeat would take care of the rest.

            “Should I be worried?” Hannibal asks, and it’s a low rumble, like distant thunder.

            Will only says, “You tell me.”

            Hannibal’s smile tightens at the corners, and Will’s stomach tightens along with it. Mentally, he repeats: it’s easiest if he thinks of himself as the bait.

            But he wonders, now, which one of them is setting the trap.


	4. Coda 1

* * *

            Hannibal is preparing food for later. Lamb, ostensibly. At least, Will is assured that it’ll be roast leg of lamb once he’s done with it. He’s been walking Will through the preparation of the dish for the last few minutes, but the words roll off of Will’s skin like rainwater. His head is quickly filling up with noise, and he keeps getting sidetracked by the little things: the wet sound Hannibal’s kitchen knife makes as it plunges into the meat, the glint of light on Hannibal’s still-drying hair. 

            They showered a little while ago, separately, Hannibal first. In the shower, Will washed himself using Hannibal’s soap and shampoo, and dried off with one of Hannibal’s spare towels. Then, he put on his clothes from yesterday. It’s hard to breathe when he smells like both of them. 

            Hannibal mixes together herbs and olive oil for a marinade, now, and Will tunes back in to hear him say, “I’ll put this in the oven before we leave, and it will be finished roasting by the time I return later.” 

            Will eyes the lamb leg, raw and red. “That’s a lot of meat for dinner for one,” he says. He wonders if this is Hannibal’s way of inviting him to come back later. “Are you expecting company, Doctor Lecter?”

            “Only Alana Bloom.”

            “Oh.” Will should have expected that answer, but didn’t, somehow. He shifts his weight from leg to leg. “Is it a social visit?”

            Hannibal looks up from his bowl of herb mix. “We sometimes get together to discuss difficult patients over dinner,” he says with a hint of a smirk.

            “Very funny.” Will knows when he’s being teased. If Hannibal is attempting to make him jealous, it isn’t working; he doesn’t care whom Hannibal gets involved with as long as it’s not someone important to him. There’s a part of him, apparently a naïve part, that had hoped, for Alana’s sake, that Hannibal would stop sleeping with her after he’d had a taste of Will. Even though they’re not on the best of terms, Will wants her well out of the way of whatever this is before it inevitably implodes.

            “That was an interesting phrase you used before,” he says carefully.

            “When?”

            “You said you’d tell Jack we were having an affair. What did you mean?”

            “Exactly what I said,” says Hannibal, who begins to rub the herb paste onto the meat. “In fact, I would argue that the two of us were having an affair long before you entered my bedroom. The word ‘affair’ connotes passion.”

            “It also connotes infidelity.”

            “Under some circumstances, yes.”

            Hannibal’s attention is on the lamb leg, and he seems content to let the subject drop. Will isn’t. “You’ve been seeing Alana for a while,” he prompts.

            “Are you asking me whether I’m cheating on Alana by engaging in sexual relations with you?”

            Will holds up his hands, showing Hannibal his empty palms to demonstrate that he’s not seeking confrontation. It’s a lie, though. He feels bold. He wants to press. “I’m just trying to figure out where we stand, here.”

            Hannibal sighs out his nose. “Neither one of you is engaged in an affair with me in the illicit sense,” he says. “We’re adults, Will. We are capable of maintaining multiple sexual relationships without it being an issue, as long as everyone involved consents.”

            “Does Alana consent?”

            “That’s what I’m planning to discuss with her over dinner.” Hannibal says it like it’s the simplest thing in the world, like people aren’t so complicated, really. Like Alana won’t have any objection to Hannibal sleeping with the man who tried to murder him. “Where we stand is that I’m drawn to both of you, as you may have noticed. However, I wouldn’t be bothered if either of you sought out other sexual relationships, even, for example, with each other. I’m hoping Alana will feel the same, and we can carry on as we were.” 

            Will laughs and places his hands down on the countertop, well away from the food. “I’m not Alana’s favorite person right now, in case you haven’t noticed.” He takes a minute to parse the rest of it, to sort out what’s true from what isn’t. He thought Hannibal would be more possessive; then again, Hannibal may not place much emotional value on sex. He has Will’s mind, after all. And Alana’s? “So you’re saying that what you feel for both of us is the same.”

            “Not exactly. Different in nature, but equal in magnitude.”

            “Different in nature,” Will repeats, edging the words with poison now that he can get to the point. “The difference is that you’re manipulating her—”

            “And you’re trying to manipulate me,” Hannibal interjects coolly. “Isn’t that right?”

            Will can’t contest it, and he doesn’t shy away from the accusation. He stands his ground and remains where he is, leaning forward with his hands balled into fits, knuckles pressing into the countertop. Hannibal finishes with the lamb and then moves closer to him, until they’re breathing the same air again. He smells of rosemary and thyme, and blood. Will stares down at his hands. Hannibal looks at Will, and says, “You could have made it much easier on yourself.”

            When Will looks up at Hannibal, they’re close enough to kiss. Hannibal smiles. Will doesn’t smile back. In that moment, they understand each other perfectly.

            “No,” says Will. “I really couldn’t.”


	5. Coda 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked me, "Why did Will and Alana end up at Hannibal's dinner table together in 'Naka-Choko,' anyway?" and I realized that I had an answer, and that's how this story ended up with a second coda. Oops.
> 
> On the plus side, all that talk about boundaries from Alana now has an added shade of meaning.

* * *

            Alana Bloom’s phone alarm goes off before the sun rises. She immediately reaches over to turn it off before the noise can wake her bedmate. Hannibal doesn’t have to worry about beating rush hour traffic back to D.C. from Baltimore, which means he can sleep in. While Alana doesn’t get that luxury, she does get to watch him sleep for a minute or two, so they can call it even. He’s nice to look at. She brushes a strand of hair out of his eyes before hauling herself out of bed to shower.

            Hannibal’s shower is nicer than hers. Dryly, she thinks she’d commute up here just for this, that’s how perfect the water pressure feels on her skin. There are so few perfect sensations in this world: iced coffee on a hot summer day, a stack of warm papers fresh off the copier, Applesauce’s fur under her fingers, and Hannibal’s shower on her back. Hannibal’s fingers on her thigh.

            Alana isn’t in any great hurry to get dressed. Getting dressed means leaving. After her shower, she wraps herself in a towel and pads, shoeless and silent, around Hannibal’s bedroom. She absentmindedly tracing a line along the wallpaper making her way to the window, where she pushes the curtains aside to look at the pinkish-brown tinge of dawn creeping its way into the sky. She sighs, thinking of how content she is now and how much she doesn’t want to make that drive to Georgetown.

            Behind her, she hears the bed creak as he moves. When she looks back, his eyes are still closed, but she knows he’s awake now. She can hear the change in his breathing. She asks him, “What are you doing?”

            His eyes open, slowly. He likes to take his time taking her in, as if she were a fine wine or a musical composition. She finds it romantic. “I was watching you,” he says.  “It’s a rare thing, to watch someone without their knowledge. You see what they’re like unguarded.”

            Alana smiles and crosses her arms over her chest. “I was watching you before,” she says, “while you slept.”

            “And what was I like?”

            “Peaceful.”

            Hannibal’s smile never quite reaches his eyes, and Alana gets the sneaking suspicion that the moment between them is about to break. “I meant to discuss something with you,” he says softly, “before we were distracted.”

            “One hell of a distraction,” Alana comments. She’d arrived at Hannibal’s house nearly twelve hours ago. “I seem to remember you being the cause of it.”

            “The theremin was the distraction. I enjoyed watching you play.”

            She laughs. “Watching, not listening?”

            “Why don’t you come back to bed?” Hannibal says, smoothly changing the subject.

            Alana tosses her wet hair back over her shoulder and lets the towel fall away to the floor before climbing back under the covers. She kisses him. It’s a good kiss. Almost all of their kisses are good. As they draw closer together she almost considers playing hooky for a day, but there’s too much work to be done. Always too much. “What did you want to discuss?” she asks. “You know I have to leave soon.”

            “I do.” One of his hands comes to rest on her cheek. “I wish I could change your mind.”

            “You must really not want to talk about whatever it is.”

            “It’s a difficult subject to broach.”

            She waits, then, without speaking, because if she doesn’t speak, he doesn’t have the opportunity to divert the conversation. He sighs, at last, and says, “I would like you to just listen.”

            “Okay.”

            “I was seduced by one of my patients.”

            Something inside of Alana freezes. All she can think to say is, “What?”

            He takes his hand off of her. “I thought that, in interest of full disclosure—”

            Alana tenses everywhere, but she doesn’t leave the bed. “Hannibal, there are repercussions for this that go beyond our relationship.”

            “I’m dealing with those separately. I’m not speaking with you now as a colleague, Alana.”

            “I know, but the part of me that’s your colleague can’t believe you let this happen.”

            “Are you retreating behind that part to avoid confronting the feelings you might have as a lover?”

            She wonders if she isn’t, but just says, “Hannibal, don’t.”

            He doesn’t. He waits for her. When she can sift through her thoughts, she says, “We never discussed the boundaries of our relationship. I can’t expect you to adhere to rules that were never established.”

            “Do you want monogamy?”

            “I don’t know, I can’t think about that right now. A patient, Hannibal, Christ.” Alana turns onto her back, just so she doesn’t have to look at him. He should know better. “You can’t tell me which patient it was.”

            Hannibal’s voice is quiet but firm when he says, “You already know which patient it was.”

            Alana only has to think on it for a second. “Oh my god.”

            “I didn’t intend for it to happen.” Alana doesn’t have anything to say. Hannibal says, “You’re angry.”

            “Of course I’m angry.” She sits up, palm pressed against her forehead, kneading it. “Before I was angry that you would engage in a breach of professional ethics, and now I’m angry that apparently you seem to have no regard for your own personal safety. Will Graham tried to kill you.”

            “Not recently.” Under Alana’s glare, Hannibal adds, “He’s no threat to me now, Alana. He’s been making great progress in his therapy sessions.”

            “Apparently.”

            Hannibal winces. “I deserve that.”

            “Yes, you do.”

            Alana takes a deep breath. Oddly enough, the part of her that was furious with Hannibal for taking advantage of a patient cooled rather quickly once she learned that it was Will. She suspects rather strongly that Hannibal’s the one being taken advantage of, but she doesn’t voice those concerns aloud. She only asks, “Do you think it’s going to happen again?”

            “I don’t know.” Not the answer she was hoping for. “Certainly not if you’re uncomfortable with it.”

            Still not the answer she was hoping for, but a little closer. “I don’t know that I could ever be comfortable with it.”

            Hannibal reaches over to place a reassuring hand on her thigh, over the blankets. She looks down at it, but not at the rest of him. “Will has changed,” he tells her. “And I strongly suspect that he misses having you in his life.” She makes a derisive sound, and he continues, undeterred. “I was hoping to have you both over for dinner, so we could discuss it.”

            Alana shakes her head, initially. She keeps running cold and hot, too emotional to be rational. After a minute or so of deep breathing, she decides that it would probably be a good idea to assess the situation herself, at least to see what Will might be up to with this development. She hadn’t known or even suspected that he was interested in men. There’s a long game here, and she doesn’t want Hannibal caught in it.

            (She doesn’t consider that they might be playing the game together until later, when Freddie Lounds comes calling.)

            “Okay,” she says. “Tell me when, and I’ll come over. I’ll try to be civil.”

            “Under the circumstances, that’s all I can ask.” The hand on her thigh moves back and forth lazily, smoothing the blankets down. “I don’t want you to leave here angry with me,” says Hannibal.

            “I’m angry with Will,” says Alana, and she’s surprised to find that it’s true. “I was angry with you, and now I’m only angry with Will.”

            “Even so.”

            She looks down at him, at last. He certainly seems apologetic. The sliver of a smile on his face is hesitant and genuine, and his shoulders, normally so straight, are hunched.

            Alana glances at the window, at the lightening sky outside. She has time, and all of this energy inside of her needs somewhere to go. She says, “I can think of a temporary fix.”

            He pulls her down and tells her, “You’re especially beautiful when you’re angry.”

            She makes a goal of erasing Will Graham from his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any lingering questions that can't be answered in the comments (or that you don't want to ask in the comments), feel free to find me on [Tumblr](http://makokitten.tumblr.com/). Thank you for reading!


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